hey! mark it!

It's Wednesday night, and you know what that means, you psychic Internet stalker, you. It means I'm chilling in Haymarket with Anita, the woman I'm stalking, except in college you can call stalking "a Literary Journalism project." I also just finished an Americano with two shots of espresso, which means I'm going to be awake for approximately the next 3 weeks. I never drink caffeine, but I just had my Pilates class and was feeling really pumped, so I was like, "Hey! I like feeling pumped! I should feel even more pumped! That would be cool!" This, however, was an incorrect inner exclamation, because now I just feel like I smoked a lot of crack and filled my skull with firecrackers. Not that I've ever done either of those things--but if you are going to do the latter, I strongly recommend cleaning your ears first. There's just nothing fun about exploding ear wax. Well, okay, almost nothing fun.

So, on those occasions when I actually remember that this is an admissions blog, I start trying to think of ways to fully convey the Hampshire experience to you via the Internet. I would post complete transcripts of every one of my classes, but I think you would derive about as much pleasure from that as you would if I posted a picture of a kitten soufflé. (If you would derive any pleasure from the latter, please go see a psychiatrist. Or go see my friend Legless Joe, who makes the best kitten soufflé I've personally ever tasted). It's not that my classes aren't monumentally exciting and consistently mind-blowing, because of course they are, but there's no way to make a classroom experience sound stimulating the second time around unless you add some explosions and unicorns into the telling. Of course, in Hampshire's olden days you could have just taken "Explosions and Unicorns 101," but PETMA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Magical Animals) made us get rid of that one in the 90s. The biggest academic news of the week is that I had a presentation on Mircea Eliade in Myth and Myth Theory on Monday and--I'm not gonna lie--I rocked it. I don't know why I would lie about that, because it's probably the weirdest and most trivial thing in the world to lie about, but I still wanted to reassure you, in case you were worried. (A note for the future: you should always assume that everything in this blog is 100% true, except for the things that are 100% false. A pretty easy rule, I think). So Eliade is this kind of awesome Romanian religionist who writes about how all myth and ritual is actually just designed to reenact the sacred time when everything was all new and amazing (think Garden of Eden, the Golden Age in Greek myth, etc.) but nobody can ever really attain it again. So, basically, things used to be sweet, but now they suck, and humanity will spend the rest of its gradually declining existence dwelling on that fact. It's a pretty uplifting concept. Anyway, my strategy for presentations generally revolves less around compelling content and more around a powerful performance. You've really got to go for the academic Oscar with these things. I don't care if the class has learned anything by the end, as long as they're crying. (That's why I always peel onions during my presentations.) Plus there were prospies there, so I had to kick it up a notch. I mean, I was talking about cool stuff, but I talked about it in a booming, authoritative tone, which made it sound way cooler than it was. Unless you've purchased the McAwesome Text Translator (TM), which will read all of your text aloud for you in my voice, you may not realize that I was born with the voice of a 45-year-old woman. Seriously. It's kind of creepy. But convenient, because I can make even the most inane statements sound like they might have value. For instance, the only reason you don't give me $5 every time you see me is because you've never heard me tell you, "Give me $5 every time you see me." Well, the other reason is probably that you never see me, unless you're an especially motivated Internet stalker who's actually hiding under my table right now. But since I just checked and no one's under there except Chuck, my usual stalker, I'm thinking you're not up to those standards quite yet.

There's a lot happening in the world at the moment, but after reviewing the most important news items of the day, I've decided there's really only one event you need to know about: Quaker Agrees to Tone Down Their Claims That Eating Oatmeal Gives You Magical Powers.
I'm pretty happy about this, because there's probably nothing I hate more in this world than oatmeal. Oatmeal is the enemy of all that is good about breakfast. It's like, "Hmmm, I could have fluffy, delicious eggs, crispy bacon, warm waffles, crunchy cereal--or I could have a mouthful of tasteless, disgusting mush that looks like steaming cat vomit and has a creepy, smiling old man on the front of the box. Whatever do I choose?" Come on, guys, breakfast is the dessert of the morning. Let's be straight about that. It is not the meal to worry about your health. It is the meal to inspire you to get up in the morning, and the only thing oatmeal inspires me to do is gag. But you know what kind of breakfast will give you magical powers? 13 bowls of Lucky Charms. Well, not so much "magical powers" as a stroke, but you might hallucinate that you're flying before you lose control of your bowels. And that's always exciting. (The hallucinatory flight part, not so much the bowel control part).

That was a pretty gross passage I just wrote. I really hope you weren't eating during any of that. I especially hope you weren't eating oatmeal, because then we couldn't be friends. Actually, that's in no way true, because just today I ran into my best friend Amy devouring oatmeal out of a Tupperware container this afternoon. I would mock her for eating that as she was walking to class, but as I recently carried an full plate of Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs and a glass of orange juice to class, I don't think I can really do that. Um...wow, things are just getting grosser as I go on. I think it's the caffeine. I'm going to stop now. Please still go to college, even though it seems really unappetizing. THE END.

that sure puts the oyster on the berrybottoms

Sometimes my friends are vampires. Sometimes I have to stake them with my broken cane. No need to thank me--it's just what I do. Maybe a little too often--but it's all for the good of humankind.

So here's the thing: I really do go to school. Really. I know there are a lot of stories floating around about how I'm actually just an cleverly disguised ex-con living off the goodwill of the unsuspecting Hampshire community (sitcom, anyone?), and I'm sure the above picture doesn't help that image, but I honestly do academic things. A lot, actually, especially since it's suddenly April and I have about .3 seconds left to finish up all my work. That is why I spent Saturday night sitting in my living room instead of doing the things I would usually do on a Saturday night, like...sitting in my living room. Well, there would be a lot more chanting and Play-Doh involved, typically, so for me that was really buckling down. To prove that I do these incredibly erudite things, and for a gratuitous opportunity to use the word "erudite," here's a list of my classes, including what I would have titled them if Hampshire had acquiesced to my humble request to become Empress of the college:

Love and Death a.k.a. Let's Talk About Sex. And Also Dead Bodies. But Not in a Creepy Way...
Myth and Myth Theory a.k.a. Every Story Ever Told is Actually Just a Retelling of Every Other Story Ever Told. Also, Freud is an Idiot.
The Practice of Literary Journalism a.k.a. Shut Up For Once, Spoiled College Kid, and Listen to People With More Interesting Lives Than Yours
Creative Writing Independent Study a.k.a. Ben and Katharine's Totally Offensive Gross-Out Make-Out Fest

All of these involve intense final projects that I have been diligently working on since the first day of the semester (read: daydreaming about how I'm going to write a research paper that will change the landscape of human experience and then watching VH1 since the first day of the semester. On a related note, anyone remember when VH1 just used to be the old people's MTV? One day they were all boring and "adult contemporary," and the next some crazy girl was taking a dump on Flava Flav's stairs. A metaphor for human existence? That could make a revelatory research paper...) The most time-consuming, but simultaneously awesomest, one is the Literary Journalism project, which involves me going into Noho several times a week to talk with Anita, an old German woman with a shopping cart who hangs out in Haymarket and has exactly the kind of wardrobe I want to acquire by the time I'm 90 years old: silk blouses, furry multicolored coats, and blindingly shiny jewelry. She's also kind of a playa: yesterday, she had this rose from this guy and had apparently gone out with two completely different guys on a date to Friendly's earlier that day. Basically, she's sort of my role model. And we're going dancing at a club next Friday, which may prove to be the highlight of my entire life on this planet. When I'm not jamming out with people literally 4 times my age, I'm going to have to do work pretty much nonstop. Luckily, I got most of my weekend awesome fun time in on Friday, when Kate's mom came to visit from Delaware. We've officially adopted her as the mod mom: she periodically sends us homemade brownies, cookies, and various Delaware specialties. I didn't really know Delaware had any specialties, but apparently they actually have a vibrant, complex culture, centering mostly around Wawas. So she came up to Hampshire and made us dinner, then hung out and actually endured our ridiculousness without being like, "Um...you people need to get away from my daughter or I'm calling the cops. Now." We also peer-pressured her into drinking a beer--she had brought Kate a bunch of Delawarean beer but she doesn't really drink. She wasn't going to, until, of course, we chanted. Have you ever been able to honestly say to someone, "I peer-pressured your mom last night?" Because you should pretty much make that the goal of your life.

After our deliciously nutritous meal of nicobolis and Rice Krispie treats, Kate and I went into Noho to see Rasputina play at the Iron Horse. I've given an account of a Rasputina show before in this blog, so I don't think I need to give you the second-by-second rundown, but suffice it to say it was magical. How could it not be, with Melora covering "I Like Big Butts" on the cello? Rasputina pretty much embodies 8th grade for me, so it's always kind of a trippy flashback to see them live--it brings me back to my brief Goth period, where I wore a spiked collar and about a tube of lipstick a day. It was good times. I didn't really get too Gothed out for this show, but I did bring along Sir Hornacious David Clomps-A-Lot, the unicorn hobby horse Kate and Ellen picked up for me at a hardware store one day. Why was there a moving, neighing unicorn head on a stick for sale at a hardware store? That's pretty obvious, I should think. Sir Clomps-A-Lot, with his cotton candy-colored mane and mouth that creepily opens and closes when you press his ear, is kind of the love of my life. And since my cane had literally broken in half the night before (forming the amazing stake I'm stabbing Amy with in the picture above) I brought Sir Clomps-A-Lot to the concert as my ambulatory support. I can now check off "Ride a Unicorn Through the Streets of Noho" off my "1,000 McAwesome Things to Do Before You Die" list. Now I just have to figure out to make that clone army so I can win a corn dog-eating contest in every state capital all at once...oh, these impossible dreams that keep me going...

So Saturday night I was a working girl, and Saturday day I was a working girl, but in a completely different way. That's right, I'm Katharine Hott McAwesome: hooker by day, scholar by night. My modmate Ben is the creator of Hampshire's top TV show, Cop/Detectives, which involves a lot of blood, hilarity, and now, hookers. Ben banged on my door at 11 am, which is pretty much the middle of the night in terms of my Saturday sleep schedule, and yelled at me to get up and dress like a whore. So I threw on fishnets, combat boots, a hot pink miniskirt, and a bathing suit top. It was the trashiest thing I've worn since I literally wore that trashbag full of trash. So I spent most of the day in compromising positions of camera--it wasn't that different from any other Saturday, except there were a lot more kids around. That's right, Camp Kingsmont--the camp that Hampshire hosts over the summer--was having registration/orientation in the building we were filming in, which bumped my outfit up from awkward to possibly criminal. We also had a big knife and a bunch of fake guns, which probably means there are going to be a lot less campers at Kingsmount this year than expected. The kids didn't seem to mind so much, though--they mostly just stared at us and one of them said, "Mommy, look! It's the police!" I'm really hoping that kid is now permanently confused as to the distinction between cops and hookers. That's going to make for some fun times.

That pretty much covers the last couple of days--throw in some random mod visitors, Adult Swim, and some more hookers, and you've basically got it. But there is a crucial piece of news I need to fill you in on: I'm famous. Really, really famous. Well, not yet. But it's starting. This is all a set-up for my anticipated award-winning memoir "How to Be Hott McAwesome Without Even Trying." (Answer: you can't. You have to be born me. And unless you've mastered the clone technology I need, you're screwed. But if you have, get in touch, ASAP). So here's why I'm famous: I'm in the Boston Globe. Actually, you're also sort of in the Globe, as a reader of a college blog. But you're not as much in it as I am, so I win. Of course, the one quote the writer used from weeks and weeks (read: 15 minutes) of talking to me is the one that makes Hampshire sound kind of like a holding cell for sociopaths: "If the stuff on my blog makes you uncomfortable, it should make you think a little about what you will be encountering at Hampshire." What I really mean is: Hampshire's a place where you've got to make your own way. It's not as easy as finding a clique and sticking to it, and you're going to meet up with a lot of people who challenge you. Not to a duel to the death--well, not often--but just people who make you think. The best description of Hampshire was in a comment on our Livejournal community--I can't remember who it was from, except that they were a former student. So here's what they said:

"We're an eclectic bunch at this school, and intolerance of ANY weird lifestyle tends to get looked down on more than anything else. There are New York pseudo and real literati, Providence electroclash hardcore kids, former meth-smoking punk rockers, militant vegans, serious organizers for democratic education programs, heavy drinkers, kids who will snort cocaine off your butt, genuinely nice people, bookworm playwrights who keep quoting shakespere, people who smoke pot five times a day, people who would rather not touch any substance, outdoors enthusiasts who built a rope course for fun in eleventh grade, seriously unstable individuals, straightedgers with tight pants, trannies, genderqueers, heterosexual white males from small towns in Montana, horseriding enthusiasts who are trying to get a novel published, dmt smokers, children of famous producers who own over 4,000 dvd's, good musicians, bad musicians, kids who have had spontaneous religious experiences and don't want or need drugs, kids who took acid every three days in seventh grade, future librarians, wealthy and incredibly generous people with a lake house in connecticut, latent schizophrenics, kids who understand multivariable calculus coming in but whose interests have bent more towards cognitive neuroscience, sluts, borges scholars, virgins, nudists, people who have never seen a naked human being except themselves since they were very young, painters, book artists with this secret store of twenty hand-made artists books they haven't showed more than four or five people, noise artists, people who play four hours of video games a day, serious young people who work waitress jobs 20 hours a week and take like 24 credit hours, drug dealers who make less money per hour than they would at a legitimate job, incredibly excited people, incredibly generous kind hearts who truly love everybody, actors, successful 3-d animators with 50k/yr jobs right out of college, kids from like Baltimore who are like totally tripping on cough syrup from the bookstore and corner you on a misty evening and Tell You How It Really Is while you're having a cigarette in the gazebo, etc. I guess the best advice I can give kids who are new to a college environment is to experiment, but to know when to say that whatever's going on is just Not Your Cup Of Tea."

Basically, I don't mean you shouldn't come here if any of this makes you uncomfortable. A lot of it should probably make you uncomfortable, unless you've really got the tolerance level of a sado-masochist. I'm just saying: you're going to encounter a lot of new, crazy things. You're not going to like all of them. But if you've got some idea of who you are and can maintain that even in the flood of all this, without closing yourself off entirely, then Hampshire will be awesome for you. Wow, this is probably the most Admissions literature-like I've ever gotten in this blog. Although...I'm pretty sure Admissions doesn't have anything to say about sado-masochists. Well, not a lot to say, anyway.

i frequently enjoy musical events

Was this guy singing sweatily all up in my face Saturday night? Yes. Did I like it? HELLZZZ YEZZZ.

(Okay, I just received a memo from The Alphabet informing me that due to my gross misuse of the letter "z" in that last sentence, I am banned from using that particular letter for at least the next 24 hours. So let's just hope this entry doesn't contain any stories about striped African horses or humped cattle. But dammit, without humped cattle, what the hell will I have left to talk about?)

The stories in this entry is going to occur less in chronological order than in McAwesome order, which means it will follow a pattern of logic only eight people on earth can understand. Two of those people secretly control the workings of the universe and the other six take enough acid, individually, to disable a sperm whale. For you kids at home: Katharine Hott McAwesome does not advocate taking aquatic mammal-sized doses of acid. She does, however, strongly advocate secretly controlling the workings of the universe. So get on that.

Back to the sweaty singing guy. That is the lead singer of the Cold War Kids, a supremely good band that played at Pearl Street this weekend. We get some really good shows around here, especially for not having a big city around, and Kate and I have dedicated to seeing as many of them as we can this semester. We missed my Brightest Diamond because she was playing the same night Kate got back to Costa Rica, but as Kate had just spent two weeks scaling 150-foot trees in 100% humidity, fighting off bullet ants, and getting less than three hours of sleep a night, I guess it made sense not to go. I'd just like to take this opportunity, again, to mention that science kids are crazy. This Costa Rica trip was for Kate's Tropical Ecology class, and when I heard about the crazy, Rambo-style shit her professor had them do, I was like, "Was there any sort of physical fitness test before this journey? Because I actually don't understand how you survived." She did drop her glasses in a crocodile-infested river, though, which means she kind of lost her face, but this trip was hardcore enough that I'm pretty sure she could have just as easily lost a hand. Which would make for a great story, but not a great Ping Pong career. (No, I have no idea why I said Ping Pong, either, especially since I'm fairly certain you can still play it with just one hand. But the other Ping Pong players might mock you and then you'd be forced to resign from the team until you discovered your most respected Ping Pong mentor also only had one hand. And then I think you'd be in the plot of a Lifetime movie.) But back to the concert. Like I said, we get some sweet shows, probably because we have some really good venues. There's the Iron Horse, which is kind of a chill, sit down or stand around bar set-up, Pearl Street, which is more of a jump around and dance like you're on fire deal, and the Pearl Street Basement, which is basically reserved for all the bands, usually from your adolesence, that you really want to see but don't really want to admit to the general public that you're going to see (Kate and I saw Rasputina there, for instance...it was actually the coolest thing ever, but a little shameful.) There's also the Calvin Theatre, where you get the really big name, mainstream people, but I don't think I've ever actually been to a show there. Anyway, this show was at Pearl Street on a Saturday night, which meant crazy dancing and general debachery.

We got there during the first opener--Tokyo Police Club, who were really good and had the most adorably spazzed-out keyboard player ever--and stood awkwardly at the back for a minute before I decided to use my Cripple Power to get us spots at the front. So I edged my way up, using my cane to gently nudge/whack people out of the way. Occasionally they'd turn around and be about to give me a look, but then they'd see my cane and be like, "Awwww...she's hobbling. Let her go wherever she wants." So I ended up pressed right against the stage, directly in front of the piano-playing lead singer, which was amazing. I managed to pull Kate and Amy all the way to the front with me, too, but somehow we ended up surrounded by the most bizarre, obnoxious people in the entire crowd. There was this one group of about four drunk guys that had somehow ended up behind Amy the entire night--they were behind her in line, singing and shuting into her face, and then they were right behind her at the show, yelling their completely nonsensical commentary about everything that was happening everywhere. When the roadies were setting up for the Cold War Kids, they were like, "Look at that guy! He's carrying a thing! That's heavy. That's heavy, guy, isn't that heavy? That guy's carrying something heavy! Yeah, go, that guy!" There was also this bottle on top of the piano with a drumstick stuck in it, which they somehow all decided was a candle, so they kept shouting, "Light the candle! C'mon, light the candle! I bet you won't do indoor fireworks!" Then, to the left of us, there was this tall guy who I immediately resented because he was wicked tall and yet standing right up against the stage. I could have forgiven him for his genetic differences, though, if he hadn't been hardcore making out with his girlfriend the whole time. I mean, hardcore, right in the front row, blocking a large section of the crowd's view with sloppy, over-eager lip gropage. They were right in front of this other tall guy, who looked over at us and was like, "Man, I wish they would cut it out." We agreed and thought we had an ally, but then he would not stop talking about it, which was really awkward since he was about two inches from their heads. He was like, "I did not pay $14 to stare at these two getting it on! If they don't cut it out, I'm just going to punch them. What's it going to take them to stop--the Apocalypse? A firehose?" So we just stood their uncomfortably while the couple doubled their efforts in response to his death threats.

Meanwhile, there actually was a concert happening, I swear. And it was sweet. I like the Cold War Kids a lot--I have no idea how to describe their sound, since my music criticism vocab basically encompasses the terms "sweet" and "not so sweet," but I've posted some songs so you guys can agree with how right I am. They put on a really great show, including this part where they brought the two opening bands back onstage to perform "Saint John," which is kind of a drunken, racuous chorus song. It was like 20 dudes just rocking out and singing at the top of their lungs while Amy and I were like, "Oh man, we so want to be them." They also know how to rock the piano, which was a big plus. This world needs more piano-rocking.

Speaking of piano-rocking:

This guy also sang all up in my face last week. If you do not know who this guy is, you are probably not as cool as you think you are. Or you are cool, but you just have a particular aversion to spastic gypsy punks. Which may be kind of safer for you, in the long run, but definitely not as fun. This dude is called Jason Webley, and he is awesome. I knew I liked his music, but I had no conception of how ridiculous a human being he is until I saw him perform at Hampshire's Red Barn on Monday. The Red Barn is the most homey of our performance spaces--it's a big, wooden...well, barn, but you know, nice and warm and not filled with humped cattle. It's also about two minutes from my mod, so it was probably the most conveniently located show I will ever attend. Our circus collective (Circus Folk Unite!) opened for him, and did their usually crazy acrobatic tricks, including a two-person burlesque dance on stilts to "All That Jazz." It was good, but kind of terrifying--I can't watch people on stilts without being like, "Oh my god they're going to topple and annihilate everyone with their tallness." It was especially anxiety-provoking since they did all their stuff without any mats, and the hard wooden floor of the Red Barn made this awful thwacking sound every time anyone rolled/jumped down on it. Circus folk and science kids--all actually insane. They should form a support group, except that it would just end in the funniest gang war every. Evolutionary biologists versus contortionists is a match I've wanted to see for a loooong time. So once the circus kids had stopped making their bodies into boxes and whatnot, Jason Webley performed. And--the dude rocks. Really. I know I said the Cold War Kids put on a good show, and they absolutely did, but it was very much a, "We're going to get up here and do our stuff and do it really well, but it's polished and in order and we're performing for you, not with you." Jason Webley, on the other hand, pretty much forced group participation. It was a pretty good-sized group of people, for a small venue on a Monday night, so he was able to kind of balance between conversational, confidential performance banter and racouous, foot-stomping mob hysteria. He plays the guitar, the accordion, and the vodka bottle--he fills it with change and manages to make it the loudest instrument ever. He also enjoys stomping--greatly--and having awkwar interactions with audience members. Like, early on, he wanted to do a singalong to "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean," and this one girl started groaning because her name is Bonnie and she hears people sing that all the time. But she consented, and he instructed us to stand up on every word beginning with "B" and then sit down on the next "B" word. Only problem--Bonnie was on crutches. So she points this out and Jason Webley was like, "You've been sent by God to punish me! What have I done?" Then he went on these rants about the movie Footloose and the time he accidentally managed to smuggle a gun from Seattle to Berlin in his luggage a few months ago. He did a lot of singing, but most of the time it was more like he was just doing whatever he came into his head--standing on his accordion, suddenly breaking into songs that sounded similar to what he was in the middle of playing, and often stomping vigourously until his hat fell off. For the finale, he wanted to do a drinking song, but the crowd was pretty uniformly sober. So he made us all stand up, point our fingers in the air, stare at said fingers, and spin around twelve times. Kids, I strongly recommend doing this at home--or, better yet, in the middle of a very large crowd, with everybody doing exactly the same thing. You will get reeeeeeal messed up. And it's cheaper and more legal than booze!* (Man, I strongly hope this catches on and some conservation Congressman tries to introduce a bill against finger-spinning. "It's destroying America's youth! They're all so goddamn...dizzy!"*) Then he made us form a giant, swaying circle around him, grab our neighbors shoulders for support, and sing, "If God wanted us sober, he'd knock the glass over." Public service announcement, everyone: you do not need drugs to get high. You just need your finger, some circus people, and some crazy dude with an accordion screaming in your face. Works every single time I've tried it.

*You should know the alphabet fined me $2,500 all the “z”s that appeared in this entry. Apparently it’s more essential to my life than I thought. I expect all of you to contribute at least $500 to the bill. At the least, next time you see a letter, throw it a few bucks.

And now, the award-winning soundtrack for this entry:
Cold War Kids
Saint John
We Used to Vacation
Hospital Beds

Tokyo Police Club
Nature of the Experiment

Jason Webley
Map